RFD 140 Winter 2009

No 140 Winter 2009 $7.75

HEART CIRCLES

Spring 2010 Issue (#141)

Time to CIRCLE! How does THAT make you feel?

As we have been celebrating the 30th anniversary of the first national faerie gathering, many feel this is a good time to contemplate the Heart Circle. While not uniquely a rad-fae experience, heart circles are the mode through which we communicate our thoughts and feelings while in community, whether at a gathering, in someone’s living room, or at the local community center. One may argue that being in heart circle is what defines being a radical faerie.

We are calling out to our communities across this globe and asking for writings about the Heart Circle. We are asking for articles of any length to share experiences, insights and stories about this process which is paradoxically our most intimate and simultaneously most public method of human relating. We are interested in ALL aspects of circling to have a critically honest discussion = what works? what doesn’t work?

What do you love about heart circles? Why do you HATE them? How do they work best for you? When have they moved your spirit, or caused you to fall asleep? Do heart circles scare you? Is it difficult for you to speak in front of others? Do you feel trapped in a dynamic of having to listen to others’ baggage ad infinitum? Are you too cool to sit in a heart circle? What is the future for heart circles in the faerie community?

Submit your writings to submissions@rfdmag.org. If you have ideas about writing, but fear the process, send an email to the same address = we can help!

Hello Readers,

Rain Forest Dreams

Vol 36 No 2 #140 Winter 2009

Betwee n the Lines

2

The British Columbia Issue

As always it is great to hear your feedback and most especially to see your perspectives in RFD’s pages. The last few issues have been rich in Radical Faerie roots and we continue that in this issue with a focus on our faerie brothers in British Columbia.

This issue’s feature was guest edited by Stitch and it was wonderful to work with him and we hope the readers enjoy the pieces from our brothers north of the border.

Meanwhile, it seems fitting to recall the gay political losses and fallout from our success that we are now facing. With the Congress making large strides in hate crimes legislation and the Obama administration passing innumberal executive and administrative orders relating to the GLBT community in a positive way. Yet we’ve also seen set back (California and Maine on marriage) and the attacks on Obama’s nominee’s to serve in the administration.

It reminds us on the Collective of the importance of self reliance, speaking truth to power and working on the struggles we ourselves can affect change upon.

We hope you enjoy the issue, look forward to your feedback and ideas for future issues and as always appreciate your continued support. Please consider ways you can help our endevour alive.

-- RFD Collective

The Vancouver Faeries are a series of smaller communities that overlap like the circles of the Olympic symbol; there’s some cross over, but for the most part, lately, there is more divisiveness amongst the group as a whole. There have been attempts of cohesion by individuals like Faerie Bud who rejuvenated Faerie Coffee and groups like the urban Green Body Gathering of the early two-thousands.

The idea of being able to help create this issue came to fruition while I was at Short Mountain and had a quick exchange with Sister Soami. My intention for putting together the first Canadian edition of this publication was three fold.

The possibility to bring the community together for a joint project.

To have our unique BC voices be heard by our brother/ sisters to the South of us and beyond.

And the third intention was... heck Vancouver’s hosting the winter Olympics and I had to distract myself from the train wreck about to hit our city!

I feel I’ve been successful in fulfilling two of these three intentions. Despite my attempts to include as many Faeries as I could and allow us to work as a community, it’s still fractured and this issue is only a small portion of the voices and images of the colourful Faeries who make BC their home. Possibly a second future publication may be created that will shine light on more of the personalities of the community.

Welcome to the lives, ideas, beliefs and visions of some of the Faerie family from BC.

Much love and light, and hugs, Stitch

On

RFD is a reader written journal for gay people which focuses on country living and encourages alternative lifestyles. We foster community building and networking, explore the diverse expressions of our sexuality, care for the environment, radical faerie consciousness, naturecentered spirituality, and share experiences of our lives. RFD is produced by volunteers. We welcome your participation. The business and general production are coordinated by a collective. The collective has a listserv for those who wish to get involved at http://groups.google. com/group/rfd-production/ Features and entire issues are prepared by different groups in various places. We print in New England. RFD (ISSN# 0149-709X) is published quarterly for $25 a year by RFD Press, P.O. Box 302, Hadley MA 01035-0302. Postmaster: Send address changes to RFD, P.O. Box 302, Hadley MA 01035-0302 Non-profit tax exempt #62-1723644, a function of RFD Press with office of registration at 231 Ten Penny Rd., Woodbury, TN 37190. RFD Cover Price: $7.75 a regular subscription is the least expensive way to receive it four times a year.

Copyright © 2009 RFD Press. The records required by Title 18 U.S.D. Section 2257 and associated with respect to this magazine (and all graphic material associated therewith on which this label appears) are kept by the custodian of records at the following location: RFD Press, 231 Ten Penny Road, Woodbury TN 37190.

From the Desk of Darlene

The Ambassador’s Wife

Dear Faerie’s,

I do welcome you to this issue of RFD. Vancouver has been my home; well let’s just say for a number of years. This has been tireless work for, most likely Stitch. We talked about this back at the Brietenbush Summer Gathering ’09, and here it is the end of September and I am just getting around to writing. This is a bit unusual as these sorts of things are done by some nameless Aide-De-Campe. I just sign or read over and OK it. This time however, they have all deserted me and I’m left to find word for the written page. That is not my forte. I am a blabber mouth and spin words orally. Maybe that isn’t all I do orally. They say a little innuendo is always good.

I do hope you enjoy reading about Vancouver and British Columbia, Canada. This is a temperate rain forest, like the Pacific Northwest in the USA. We do get a dry spell in the long summer days. The day length is due to our latitude above the 49th parallel.

If you do find your way to this place make sure to let us all know, so we can welcome you or avoid you depending.

Love

Darlene, the Ambassador’s Wife

Reflections of a Near-lapsed Faerie

by Berns Galloway/Beautiful One

In being asked to write about faerie life on Vancouver Island or what it is like to be a faerie here, I have had to ask myself, “Am I a faerie?” This question then requires another, “What is a faerie?” Does attending a few faerie gatherings at Faerie Camp, playing with drag, lovingly exploring men and their bodies, honouring the four directions and celebrating a few pagan rituals make me a faerie? Can I be a faerie without other faeries in my community? Is faeriedom a social phenomenon requiring two or more men? Am I a weekend/holiday faerie, donning my wings when I leave town to play friends in the city?

I wonder if I am a near-lapsed faerie whose membership could be expiring from lack of attendance of faerie gatherings. The faerie police could slap me with a stiff fine or handcuff me to the nearest tree and whip me with a boa. There is a wee niggle of guilt for being what might be judged a bad faerie (and doesn’t that notion conger up fun ideas…huummm… different then a good faerie gone bad…). Yet, all I need to do is remember. When I do, there is no question or doubt. Attending gatherings is like church – I don’t have to be there to believe. I can stop wondering and simply remember.

I like the idea of being a faerie, despite forgetting at times I am. This is similar to the forgetting I do that I am ONE and connected with everything. When I re-member, my experience of everything shifts, there is nothing wrong with me, my heart opens and all is well. Remembering to bring out my faerie nature can light and lighten me up. I become more playful, more fun and can feel myself wiggle out of my tight layer of clothing (sometimes literally) and adorn myself with magical faerie dust. Rules become less important while embracing an ethical appreciation for life. Some faeries have faerie-godmothers. Mine is Miss Grace Pace. Despite little contact, he continues to be an

inspiration. I remember the day he told me about faeries and how intrigued, excited and frightened I was. Hearing stories of men honouring and reflecting themselves in authentic and joyful ways, being more of who they are, and opening their hearts, became a reality for me during my first gathering. Miss Grace Pace’s vitality, playfulness, spontaneity, and lovingly I-dare-you-challenges encouraged me to step out of my comfort zone and let my own beautiful Self shine forth.

My assumption is, if you are reading this as part of the RFD, you know about faeries and possibly know if you are one or not. I have rather prided myself in holding the label faerie; I like being introduced by other faeries as “another faerie”. I am included, part of, and belong to this magical and mysterious club. I do not know other men on this island who call themselves faeries. They may

certainly exist. I have heard rumors. Vancouver Island has its fair share of queer male residents - how many of them are even aware of faeries or would want to be one is a wonder. Faerie life for me is mostly a way-of-life rather than an activity or event. It is a state-of-mind grounded in the body and anchored in something much larger. It is a practice calling for a mindfulness of who I am – regardless of any label of faerie, gay, male…

At one gathering of faeries I purchased a faerie bell, which ended up in a box with other jewelry I stopped wearing. This reflection has resurrected the bell now hanging around my neck. Each time I hear its magical tone I have the opportunity to remember the faeries, the options I have about how I experience life, and who I am. ..I simply have to hear its calling.

Art by Thirsty McBunny, Vancouver

Back to the Land for Faerie Sanctuary

by Tiger Lily

I’ve wanted to go “Back to the Land” since I watched the hippies on their summer migrations of the 60’s & 70’s. It all seemed so possible in British Columbia where the summers were hot and sensuous, and the winters mild enough to live comfortably in a cosy, tarpaper shack. A couple of communes started up near Lytton, giving abandoned country homes sparkling new souls and, structural updates not of the type that I had become accustomed to by my mid teens. They produced amazing crops on land that had been ignored for years and irritated the locals by underselling the local grocers, swimming in the river nude, dressing in flowing rags and not bothering to shave. That group practiced all the right organic methods to respect Mother Nature, while another group established a compost pile a bucket’s toss from their back door and harvested food from the local grocer. The first group took the time to whittle a sign welcoming visitors, rather than fix the wobbly table and chairs where guests would be invited to sit. The second group just took time. It was all so magical and enticing.

I made my own return to the land

about twenty years later. By that time I had experienced the rush of faerie camaraderie in and near Denver, at Brietenbush, Wolf Creek, American Ridge, and Vancouver. I had been indoctrinated by the likes of Harry & John, Sylvan Radiant Bear, Kuloka, Marvelous T Persimmon, Columbine, Lupin, the Saturns and many more. I’d been receiving RFD for 13 years, but read every article as though it was that first

over hours or weeks, then scatter to the farthest regions of their universe again. Some years the fabulous idea would involve a mailing list or event schedule and things would happen for months. In the late 70’s Fairykin Farm (aka Woodland) and River Farm were centres of faerie energy in Nelson, BC. But the energy seemed to go nova in Vancouver in the late 80’s. Will P produced some fabulous graphics that made me feel like this was more than a few friends having the occasional heart circle, sweat lodge or Wiccan ritual.

We had a name: BC Radical Faeries! So, as soon as I felt like I was part of a strong community, I left it, on my own, for 35 acres in clean air and sunshine. Smooth move, Tiger Lily! Now, how do you recreate that back-to-the-land movement you so wanted to be a part of? With the help of faerie friends, of course.

one: “Do U spell zucchini with one yuk or two?” by Wm Rogers (Issue #25).

Faerie energy in BC tended to be rather nebulous for a long time. Once in a while one or two faeries would get a fabulous idea, put out a call, faeries would coalesce, celebrate or perform

The call went out for a BC Radical Faerie Gathering to be held June 18 to 21, 1993, subtitled “Burning Bridges, Finding Fords” and it was to be held on my sanctuary near Grand Forks, BC. Perhaps if I grew enough zucchinis we could recreate the Great Zucchini Forced Feed at the 2nd Spiritual Gathering of Radical Faeries, but the zucchinis didn’t grow.

Oh the faeries were so excited! And we worked hard to prepare the site. In early

April seven of us spent a long weekend clearing gathering space next to the winding Christina Creek. We chopped, we hauled, we weeded, we raked the perfect, shady spot for the heart circles. Then we chopped, weeded, dug & built a sweat lodge in the bank of the creek. We found dry rocks, built a fire, filled buckets with water and had a most excellent sweat. We chanted and sung and sucked in air and steam, then burst out to jump into the cold, deep, creek and scream in shock and delight. It was heaven. This was going to be one powerful Faerie Gathering, we were sure. And it would be. But not the way we imagined.

On the drive back to Vancouver next day, a couple of the faeries started feeling itchy. Six hours later, one was having trouble breathing and the driver was speeding to a Vancouver ER to treat a spreading rash! A week later another faerie woke to find he was covered with the same rash. We had cleared sacred faerie space in the middle of a thick patch of poison ivy. Then we rubbed our bodies with ivy-root-filled, hot mud in the sweat lodge. Ouch!

We had already sent out the call. There was no turning back now. A week before the gathering we cleared a new spot, far from the creek. This time there was no sweat lodge. Not that we didn’t have time to build it. No, there was another natural disaster. Every mosquito egg that had ever been laid in the last 7 years hatched that spring and there was not nearly enough food to go around. We had to slather ourselves in bug repellent and still they bit us. We used our fabulous, diaphanous streamers to make a large gathering tent that was relatively impervious to the flying feeding frenzy and created the Pink Palace of Poop so blood loss would be kept to a minimum while we were giving gifts back to the earth. But, thank the goddess, after a week’s worth of sunshine the mosquitoes receded to the creek, during the heat of the day anyway. In the late evening they shivered and went to sleep, as did we.

Masses of faeries arrived from much of North America (OK, there were 50 of us from West & Central N.A.), with fabulous flowing garments, enough food to create amazing feasts and enough spirit to defy all that the goddess sent our way. It was magical. And everyone went home with large red, itchy, souvenirs of their glorious time in Mosquito Heaven…mostly never to return.

We hosted a second gathering the next year: Eating Beans, Passing Gas. It was equally revitalizing, but much smaller. And since it was held a month later, the mosquitoes were long gone. Our coalescing was done for a time, though. We went back to our own orbits to wait for the next fabulous idea.

There may have been more BC Radical Faerie Gatherings since then, but you’ll have to get another old faerie to talk about those. I’ve moved many times since then and now reside even farther from the centre of the BC Radical Faerie universe, in a place where the mosquitoes never stop munching. I have yet to master the art of zucchini culture, but at least I am thriving thanks to the help of my faerie friends.

Break my restraints and leave me to freedom a beast wouldn’t scare me more

Allow this body to be seized god I’d let you crush me if it’d give you pleasure

Puppet to one another devotion’s a veneer I put on as long as you dress up in naked truthaa

The way you hold me down now my hands could circle at the verge of your spine a tail

When you raise me lips over hips it is to force me down in a thrust oh you love to say my name then

What a man is made for but play games and dream his days -awaken again what youth lost

Yes break my restraints and leave me to freedom remind me of the reasons to fear

Poetry by Etienne Victoria, BC

Our feet are painted in grass thus the Earth brushes up against our soles its green ointment stains the skin which is palest tattoos dancer’s tools grounded for gathering peace

Our faces were sketched with smiles and so it is using the sun of our mouths pouring through irises rainbows that flower a figure of speech shaping words of the flesh

Our hearts will carve open ears to places within ourselves which never heard before centers rendered deaf by bony membranes in which both love and hate pierce channels to empty or drain

Our chests mold whole worlds untold where lungs engulf the steam of warm streams during morning dews after ageless silences finally music designed by Her shaped in human form resounds

so the Earth May Celebrate its Creative Burst into Us such a Secretly Self Caress

My First Faerie Camp

by Bug

My name is Ronnie and I’m in a wheelchair because I’ve got Cerebral Palsy and I’ve lived on my own for many years. It’s been quite a struggle from leaving home after High School as I didn’t have that many options being a quadriplegic. I checked out group homes but knew that wasn’t for me. Then my Mom told me about a one bedroom wheelchair assessable apartment and knew that was for me. Once I was on my own, I started to become my own person. One day I went one Gay.com just to see what It was and stared to talk with guys. I knew I was Into guys, but I didn’t know how much till I got a guy to come by. I was hooked.

I said to myself I wasn’t going to tell anyone because all the days before this my life had been like an open book. It felt good to keep something this big to myself. My helper of many years knew about me and told me that she knew in small ways, but I kept changing the subject. I kept talking to this one guy and told him I am in a wheelchair and other stuff. He told me he was unsure about meeting, but months later he came to my place and we hit it off. I found out he love traveling and I love it too. This guy was named Tyler and he’s become my boyfriend.

He told me about this camp he goes to in the States, and I love trying new stuff and I’ve never done anything like this. We talked about it and I liked what he told me about the hot springs, and I thought about it and I said I wanted to go. We filled out the forms that we needed to go and months later we headed there in his car. We stayed over at Farmer Tom’s place. The next morning we got up, ate, got in the car and a few hours later we were there. I was a little nervous when we got there but I kept it to my self. When we drove to our parking space I saw guys In dresses and different kind of clothes, and some of them seem to be out there. I said to myself keep an open

mind and as we got out of the car, the guys came and said hi and I noticed they are so nice.

That night they had an opening Ritual and that did seem a bit odd to me. I leaned over to Tyler and said what have you gotten me into? When it was over Tyler asked me what did you think, I said “Don’t tell my Mom about this part.” Over the next days I got used to being there. I was having fun. Tyler took me to the hot springs, we were in for like half an hour. The next day Tyler had to help someone with something so he left me in the main room of the lodge and a bald

him my American boyfriend.

Before we left for the camp Tyler got me to watch a black and white movie called “Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?”. I’d never seen it. Afterwards Tyler said now that we have seen it I’ve got an Idea. Tyler told me he want to dress us up like to two women In the movie. I looked at him and said you are nuts no one will know who we are. He said, “Oh yes they will, they’re faeries.” We bought some pajamas and an ugly dress and borrowed wigs. On the second night at dinner everyone was getting their food. We got changed in the women’s bathroom and Tyler asked his best friend Pansy to help with our make-up. When we walked into the dining room, everyone did know who we were and applauded, giving us a standing ovation. If they didn’t know, they certainly did when they saw the fake rat I had on my lap.

guy came up to me and started taking to me. I was thinking this guy is so hot. He was asking me questions about me. Some people would leave just because it takes me a bit to think about what to say, but this guy kept asking me questions and I answered him. As we talked, I felt we

The next day Tyler was working at the Faerie Market so Mark and his boyfriend Onyx took me to the river which was down a big hill. It was so cool and they pushed me down. After we were ready to go back up, but it was hard. Mark got four other guys to help us back up. I thought that was cool. Back at the market, Tyler had sold all the bags that he made which made him really happy. Tyler and I were tired so we were going to lay down. We told Mark and asked him if he wanted to join us. He said, “Oh ya!” We went back to out cabin and all lay on the bed. I never had that experience before and it was fun.

became closer so I asked him his name and he said It’s Mark. The next time I saw Mark, Tyler had stuff to do for the Talent show, so I asked, ‘You want to go back to my cabin?’ He said yes. Mark pushed me there and he told me he’d never been with anyone like me before. So I talked and told him what to do like putting me on the bed and let’s just have fun. When we got back to the lodge Tyler asked, “Did you have fun?” I smiled and said O yes. Tyler could see that I had fun. Mark is from the USA, so we started to call

That night we had a bigger auction and Tyler had me wear a pink dress. I could have killed him, but I said to myself “When in Rome…” So he put it on and Mark, my new American boyfriend, leant me some big black Army boots. Tyler put my hand on the edge of the dress and I flashed everyone the boxers I was wearing underneath. At the auction Tyler took the dress off and I wore a green Army jacket that was up for auction. It was just me in my boxers, big boots and a jacket. I could have killed him again!

On the last day Tyler said bye to some of his friends and I said bye to the people

Continued on Page 13

Tyler made me wear a pink dress. I could have killed him but when in Rome...

Photo booth picture of Bug

The Salmon Prince

by Luke Warmwater

“The Salmon Prince” is a traditional story told in Tsimshian villages along the Skeena River, on the BC coast. When it was first published in the early 20th Century, it was “sanitized” of its queer content by White ethnographers and publishers. This telling is a compilation of three versions, de-sanitized.

The following is an edited excerpt from Luke’s work-in-progress novel.

There was once a time when famine troubled the villages along the Skeena River. The people stored fish for the long winters but it was never enough. They were starving before spring arrived.

In one village the Chief and his wife had a handsome son. He worked hard and he had a kind heart. He was given a slave boy to look after him, and the slave boy cared for him faithfully.

One day while they mended nets the slave boy began to cry for he was very hungry. The Prince searched through his mother’s boxes to find food for him. At last he found a dried spring salmon that his mother had hidden in a secret place. He broke off part of the salmon and gave it to his slave boy.

His parents returned with bark for their dinner. His mother announced proudly that she had saved a special treat to eat with the bark. She went to her secret hiding place to find the salmon. When she saw that it had been eaten she shrieked with anger. The Prince explained that he had given some to the slave boy. She scolded her son loudly and she beat the slave boy.

The Prince was so angry that he decided to run away. He waited until after dark when his parents were sleeping and disappeared into the forest.

The young Prince ran deep into the forest until he was lost. He struggled through the forest until he found a trail. It led him back to the river but far away from his village. He sat down at the base of a large tree and fell asleep.

He woke in the morning and he was hungry and cold. He didn’t know where

he was or how to get back to his village.

A canoe came towards him up the river. He had never seen a canoe like this before. It had a bow on each end and its colour was silver. It seemed to bend from left to right as it moved. It glided though the currents without making waves. He watched with wonder as it approached.

The canoe stopped at the shore near him. A man climbed out of the canoe and walked straight to where the young Prince was sitting. The Prince stood to greet him. The stranger was a young man of great beauty, the same height and age as himself. His eyes were warm and kind and his skin seemed to glow.

The stranger gave him a warm smile as if he knew the Prince well. “Please come with me, my friend. My father needs your help. In return, I will save your village from starvation.” With these words he locked their fingers together and guided the Prince to his magic canoe. The stranger seemed familiar.

in the centre of the village. He led the Prince to the back of his father’s house, to the bed where his father was lying. His father sat up and smiled.

“Is this the young man who saved my life?” the old Chief asked as they approached him.

“Yes, father. He is the one.”

“What do you mean? How could I save your life? I have never met you.”

“My father has been ill for two years, ever since your mother stored his former body in her secret hiding place. When you finally opened the box and gave some of his flesh to your slave boy, my father’s health improved.”

“What do you mean my mother stored his former body?”

“My father is Chief of the Spring Salmon, and I am his son, the Salmon Prince.”

“How did I save your life by eating your flesh, Salmon Chief?” the Prince asked.

The Chief explained. “My soul longs to be young and healthy once more. But first, all of my flesh must be consumed and my bones must be burned in a fire. Only then can I be reborn to swim in the rivers and oceans again.”

The canoe pulled away from the shore by itself as though it was alive. The boat went faster and faster without paddling. The young Prince was frightened.

“It is all right,” said the stranger. “You will be safe if I hold you.” He wrapped his arms around the Prince and pulled him back to rest against his chest. Suddenly the canoe sank under the waves and it continued to move at great speed. The water was not cold and he could still breathe. The Prince felt his warmth and love and he trusted him completely. They traveled for a long time underwater until the Prince fell asleep.

He woke just as they arrived in a large village. All the houses were painted with drawings of salmon. The stranger said to the Prince, “I want you to meet my father.” He led him to the largest house

“People of your village have been hiding their salmon instead of eating it,” the Salmon Prince continued. “Every year their catches grow smaller because fewer of us are reborn. To save your village from starvation you must learn the proper ways of treating salmon. You must teach these ways to your people.”

The Salmon Prince took his hand and he showed him around his village. Then he asked the young Prince if he was hungry. He said he was. “You must go behind the house where you will find the children playing. Select a plump one and club him on the head. He will be your meal. You must cook him over the fire and eat him. Take a drink of fresh water to help him be reborn. Then you must gather up every bone and throw it into the fire. His parents will thank you for his Spirit will be reborn.”

The Prince found the children playing behind the house. He chose a plump one. At first he was afraid to strike it but he knew he must never disobey an Animal Spirit. He clubbed the child and it turned

The stranger was a young man of great beauty, the same height and age as himself. His eyes were warm and kind and his skin seemed to glow.

into a salmon. He cleaned it and cooked it. When he was finished he placed all the bones in the fire and returned to the house.

Inside there was a new child in place of the one he had eaten, but this child was holding his eye and screaming in pain. The Prince hurried back to the fire and there he found the eye of the fish he had dropped by mistake. He threw it into the fire and returned to the house. The child was now playing quietly and his eye was healed.

He sought out the Salmon Prince and told him of his success. “You are learning the proper way to treat the salmon people,” he said. The young prince saw the love in the Salmon Prince’s eyes and his heart was moved. The Salmon Prince brought him to his chamber and there they made love.

The young Prince stayed in the village of the salmon people one year. It was the happiest year of his life. He walked everywhere with Salmon Prince holding hands as lovers do. The Salmon Prince told him that he must return to his village before the next spring so he could teach his people what he had learned. But the young Prince wanted to stay. That spring the salmon people sent their scouts to the Skeena River disguised as cottonwood leaves. They waited for news that the ice on the river was breaking. Finally the scouts returned and the Salmon Chief announced the date for their departure. The Salmon Prince came for his lover.

“Now I must take you back to your village.”Again the Salmon Prince held him in his arms as the canoe went under the water.

“You see that everything has an order,” the Salmon Prince told him. “If my father’s flesh is not eaten and his bones are not burned, he cannot lead the Spring Salmon. No salmon will return to the river and your people will starve. I must leave you here and return to my village to help them prepare for their journey.”

The young Prince’s heart was filled with sadness. The Salmon Prince felt his sadness and he held him in his arms.

“This is not the last time you will see

me, my love. I will come near the end of the run. Be waiting in the water near the shore of your village. I will find you. You must kill me. Do not dry my flesh, but eat it freshly cooked and place my bones in the fire.”

With these words the Salmon Prince kissed him tenderly. Then the Salmon Prince changed into a salmon and swam away in the direction of his village. The magic canoe continued on and the young Prince fell into a deep sleep.

When he woke, he was lying on the beach in front of his village. The villagers led him to his father’s house. His parents were thrilled to see him alive. They had mourned his loss since he left the village a week ago.

He told his family the story of what had happened. He went to the box where the dried salmon was hidden and he explained what they must do to end the

waited without fear by his feet. He knew this was the Salmon Prince and his heart was filled with joy. He killed him with a club and carried him in his arms to his fire. There he cleaned and cooked the meat. He was careful not to lose any part of his body.

When he lifted the first piece of flesh to his lips he felt his lover’s kiss again. He held him in his mouth so he could remember the taste. When he swallowed he felt his lover’s Spirit spread throughout his body like a warm glow. He ate each piece until his body ached with love. He ate slowly without saying a word until all the fish was gone. His lover’s Spirit filled his body like a vessel. He gathered every bone and scrap left behind and he burned them in the fire. From that day onward he was never sad or lonely. Each year he fished for salmon with great joy, waiting for his lover to return. His people followed his lessons and they never suffered from famine again.

Luke Warmwater makes his home in the heart of Vancouver’s downtown core.

Continued from Page 11

I met. A Faerie named Rhoda Roadkill gave me a beautiful beaded necklace with a large tooth from a boar. I said bye to Mark and he gave me a real leather hat. Once home I added him to my MSN so we can keep in touch.

famine. They ate the last of the fish and they burned the bones as he instructed.

He taught his father how to make offerings to the Salmon Spirits. He showed the villagers how to prepare and eat the first salmon. Then he helped them bring in the catch. It was the greatest catch in many years.

Everyone was pleased except the young Prince. He grew sadder each day waiting for his lover to appear. He could not bear to eat any of the fish they caught. His parents and his slave boy worried for his health.

On the last day of the catch when the nets were almost empty, he waited in the shallow water by the shore. A beautiful spring salmon swam directly to him and

I’ve been home for a few months and I was thinking how my life has change, and It went from not knowing many gay guys to a whole wack of guys. Now before when Tyler wasn’t in my life I had fun sometimes, but now I’m having fun all the time. Since I told my family I am gay I had a fear that it would change things with them, but it hasn’t, I’m glad I found someone who likes traveling because I love it too.

Bug makes his home in Burnaby BC, with his cat Duchess

When he lifted the first piece of flesh to his lips he felt his lover’s kiss again. He held him in his mouth so he could remember the taste. When he swallowed he felt his lover’s Spirit spread throughout his body like a warm glow.

Faerie Home Altars

Three Sentence Stories

Three Sentence Stories give flavour to our three day rural Gatherettes…. Witches, faeries and farmers, oh my!

I arrive on Salt Spring Island in a male body carrying the energy of the Goddess Ravenna Ravine and am asked to aspect the Goddess in a community ritual. Flashing back to my childhood in a rural area, I am not sure how I will be received as a male-bodied goddess, but my concerns go unfounded as this is not the rural environment of my childhood.

Morgain Lessloss

Donning coats and boots, we extract ourselves from the warmth of the fireplace to take Raven for a late-night walk; truth be told, it’s us who needs the exercise. We walk along the dark country road with only stars to illuminate our way, Raven almost invisible with her dark fur. These walks help us to digest an array of dishes: the nurturing meals served on plates and eaten, and the dishy drama played out among the attendees and visitors at these glorious weekend retreats.

Marcus Greatheart

Beauties in Easter Bonnets, Saltspring Island

1. Shares at the heart circles, they seem much closer to the truth within such a small intimate gathering.

2. Puppy piles everywhere (all in loving heart space).

3. Knowing Raven our dog was always a faerie – she loves being in the centre of the gatherings, keeping everyone earth grounded.

CrowDog

Luke Warmwater, photo by Raspberry Showboat

Robin Hood after being flogged

I come home from picking a basket full of spring nettles to make a country soup for the arrival of my city faerie friends. As I walk up my back step I see Evie splayed out naked on our picnic table as Shift draws on his cock with magic markers and Marcus Greatheart films it, planning out the sound track for the evening’s coming entertainment.

I’m relieved that the retired policeman, our closest neighbour, the one who we used to suspect spied on us with his binoculars, now sadly has Alzheimer’s.

Robin Hood

......Temple in red dress with red matching shoes, struggling with the plunger, suddenly has a number of “butch” faeries ready to use the plunger in more ways than one... and, of course, several photographers in range for the paparazzi moments and “replay” Stitch in fabulous outfit made from coffee filters donated by Pansy

......Using face masks and flower petals to create wonderful faces, faeries pose in the garden Tulip

It takes a ferry to get the Faeries to these Gatherings; one is a trip quick, the other a much longer venture. The intimacy of sharing our words, hearts and snores as we sleep several in one room. The food; shopping, preparing, chopping, cooking, steaming and the pause as we give thanks before the ultimate consumption of these fine intentional feasts.

Stitch

Robin Hood and Tulip with nettles for soup

Stitch and Rosario, photo by Raspberry Showboat

happiness is a faerie gatherette

by Tulip

I’ve been dancing passionately as a latecomer faerie for most of the last decade, attending Vancouver faerie coffees and heart circles whenever I can (I do live on the Sunshine Coast, a ferry ride away) and travelling happily to Breitenbush twice a year for those great faerie infusions. Being a faerie that way is wonderful, if not fabulous, but also very discreet and cautious. It’s only lately that I have once more “come out” by hosting faerie gatherettes on the solstice weekends (spurred on by the equinox gatherings of Robin Hood and Crowdog on Saltspring Island) and thus joining that ever-widening circle of faerie communities.

The main challenge for me was to find the courage that I too could host a faerie gathering, that I had that right and that it was a privilege to support my tribe in whatever way I could. The space I have been creating calls for faerie energy and faerie presence. Then I had to convince myself that setting an intention and an invitation would be received by those who needed it and returned by those who don’t. The clearer the intention I’ve learned, the better it will be received. And from there on, the challenges were mainly logistical, matters of communication and making the necessary preparations, for once the intention and the energy were set, the gatherette took on a life of its own.

The call, I’ve learned, is like the wind, an energetic invitation sent abroad to signal to faerie sentience that the community will meet as faeries do and have forever. In more mundane and necessary protocol this is usually an e-mail or a flyer or letter that speaks the specifics of time and place and begins to set the guidelines for the participants, talking of matters of accommodation (beds and/or tents) and organization. I have found it helps to be open and available to those who wish to arrive early and stay

after the event, but also to be firm about everyone being on time (yes, and not in faerie time, either), arriving before the opening circle and staying until the circle is closed. Entering or leaving the circle if one must is best if it is like sliding into a meadow pool without creating waves. I conclude the invitation with a request to respond by a certain date so that a sense of the number attending is available a week or so before the event. Despite that, I magically always have a sense of the final number and marvel that no matter how much the guest list fluctuates we invariably meet what has been cast.

approach to making the necessary preparations. At that time I also connect by e-mail with all those who have accepted the invitation and suggest what things to bring to be ready for the weather and the proposed activities, what basic menu plans are in place and how they can be supplemented, and, of course, how to get here. I try not to get too concerned about the details but I believe it is best to do everything I can to prepare for the gathering, for once the gathering begins it invariably takes on its own dynamic and the best I can do is surrender and enjoy.

In the weeks that follow the call, I think a lot about what I ought to do to prepare for the gathering, but seldom does much get done. My task it seems is more a metaphysical one of holding the space, of imagining a crucible or a lotus flower that needs to be held lovingly and calmly in the ether between things. And, of course, I chatter with those who reply, encouraging them with their ideas for the gathering or commiserating with those who won’t be able to attend and reassuring them that we will call them into the circle and that they will be with us in spirit.

About two weeks before the gathering, I make my lists of things to do, my usual conscientious teacher-organizer

I sense that the gathering invariably takes on the character of the substance of the opening circle. For me, the best opening and calling of the circle employs an eclectic blend of native, witchcraft and pantheistic spirituality. As the directions are called and the spirits summoned to create the circle, the mystery and the magic of being faeries begins once more to unfold and be visible. No matter how beautiful the ritual, though, it is the intent behind the ritual that matters, and everything else, whether long or short or heavy or sweet, is wonderful faerie drama. And once the circle is drawn, I marvel each time to see how quickly the urban hetero-conditioning falls away, especially once the heart circle and the gender play takes over. Within minutes and hours, the conditioned role-playing and competitiveness based on subjectobject relationship gives way to Harry Hay’s subject-subject relating and the crucible that is the gathering releases deep and joyful creativity, devotion to the sacred and to truth, and a oneness of light. Can there be anything better than that?

And when the gatherette ends – always much too quickly – the closing of the circle must mirror the opening and express gratitude to the spirits that have held us in the safety of the faerie space. Special care must also be given to call for support as we return to the

As the directions are called and the spirits summoned to create the circle, the mystery and the magic of being faeries begins once more to unfold and be visible. No matter how beautiful the ritual, though, it is the intent behind the ritual that matters, and everything else, whether long or short or heavy or sweet, is wonderful faerie drama.

“muggle” world, so to speak, to cushion the return and the vibrational fall, the depth of which is often equivalent to the height of joy and bliss engendered in the gathering.

And what is it that happens at our gatherings, friends say, some sincerely wanting to know and others merely inviting another chance to snicker. It never ceases to amaze me what we do to laugh and play and deepen our sense of faeriehood, our camaraderie and our spiritual growth. At first I felt I had little

to offer except a place to play and be, and even now that a hot tub, a labyrinth, and a ceremonial sweat lodge have been added to my space, all imitative of the joyful activities available at Breitenbush, it is not the space or what we do that fills the weekend or the days when we are together, but the energy we breathe and share that makes the gathering so special. I could get addicted to that. I always love the photographs that follow and become mementoes of our time together, but they only remind me of what we have shared and conspired, and, that, of

course gives me the motivation to plan the next occasion to connect and gather.

I feel and know keenly that I am a part of a special group of individuals – now more and more open and visible to the world – a community that breathes and plays together as it searches for identity and meaning. The more we meet, the more it seems we unravel that mystery. Here’s to that bliss.

Tulip makes his home at The Landing Place in Sechelt on the Sunshine Coast BC

Summer Solstice Gathering at the Landing Place 2008

Let There Be Light: Cross-Fertilizing Spirituality

By Marmot

Whether or not my mum or dad had a spiritual consciousness, or what that may have involved, I cannot say. We didn’t discuss such personal things in my family. What I do recall is dad ceremoniously and somewhat self-consciously saying grace before Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners. Apart from that, our family’s focus on the divine was confined to occasional attendance at our neighbourhood Anglican (Episcopal) church on what I call the “high holidays”–Easter, Thanksgiving, and Christmas Day. In retrospect, worship there was a stuffy affair–lots of ladies in hats and gloves, a robed choir, the cadences of the seventeenth century prayer book, and the massive frame of Archdeacon Woolf, sonorously intoning “It is very meet, right, and our bounden duty…” as he began the Great Thanksgiving Prayer of the Holy Communion.

It was all very fascinating to this young, gay child. The brass and silver, the deeply polished mahogany altar and carved triptych, the rich, elaborately embroidered silk vestments, the poetic rhythms of the old English canticles and Psalms, the solemn processions, the bowing, crossing, kneeling, and genuflecting of the congregation in their Sunday best. After these outings, I would return home and “play” church with my friends; setting up an ironing board with brass vases on each end for an altar, putting up a music stand for a pulpit, and wrapping a white sheet around me for an alb. My love affair with the ritual expression of my spiritual nature had, unbeknownst to me, begun. Is it any wonder I wound up as an Anglican priest?

My long journey leading to the Christian path really began with an appreciation that the divine is expressed in the

spiritual traditions of all cultures, across the millennia. The spiritual impulse is essential to humankind, and has withstood the pressures of gross acts of inhumanity, the temptations of consumerism, the oppression of enforced atheism, and the insights of science. But, in many cases, the institutionalisation of that impulse into what we call religion has itself been the excuse for acts of intolerance, aggression, and destruction. Despite this, it’s worth remembering that religions have also been at the forefront

come together in our common journey as Faeries. For we do have a distinct spirituality and a distinct consciousness that mark us as the other, the queer, in the eyes of the institutional, heteronormative world with which so many of us contend on a daily basis.

of great movements of liberation, love, and peace. Martin Luther King, Mahatma Ghandi, Desmond Tutu, and the Dalai Lama are included among the names of great spiritual leaders.

To that pantheon, I would add the names Harry Hay, James Broughton, and others who were among the first to declare the unique spiritual nature of gay men. They initiated the creation of a safe space for our shared spiritual exploration–a space where pagan, Sikh, Christian, Jewish, Hindu, Wiccan, Baha’i, Muslim, Buddhist, and men of all spiritual professions or none at all can

There are those who have found their way to the Faeries in part because of the hurt, abuse, or exclusion they have experienced in traditional, collective spiritual movements. So many churches, mosques, synagogues, gurdwaras, and temples have morphed into abettors of a culture of destruction and consumption. We all know what sort of communities these are–they are Shrines of the House Rules–rules that determine who is “one of us,” and who is the outsider to be shunned, tolerated, changed, or converted. But Faeries know that spirituality is outside the mainstream. It is a queer phenomenon, feared by the shepherds of hetero-normative conformity. Such wannabe shepherds always seem to rise to the top in any organization, and they have (wittingly or not) perverted the good impulse of peoples, cultures, and tribes coming together in religious community to share the life and love divine; to learn and teach from one another; to celebrate in song and ritual; to supplicate and give thanks in prayer; to dwell in peace and oneness in meditation; to care.

The gap can be bridged. Traditional spiritual communities, such as the Christian church, can rise from the ashes of deadening conformity and the certainties of doctrine to be renewed as living places of spiritual questing. This summer, the church I am at hosted an event called Sharing Queer Spirit: Can the Church Be Saved? It featured a symposium at which I gave a talk entitled, “Spiritual Intimacy: What the Church Can Learn From the Radical Faerie Movement.” Most of the attendees

My hope, dream, and prayer is that cross-fertilization between all faiths, religions, and spiritual paths will draw Faeries and other gay men together, so we can be a beacon. Together, we can light a path for those gay men destroying themselves through the inauthentic, hetero-imitative habits of the dysfunctional side of gay culture.

Faerie Altar

Christian Altar

were from outside my congregation, including three self-identified Faeries. Not bad for my small town of 10,000. It’s a small step…but it’s a step in the right direction.

At the same time, those–like me–who come from “institutional” religious communities are a living proclamation to the Faerie tribe that there are many unexpected pathways to spiritual authenticity and integrity for gay men. A feature of many gatherings has been a get-together of Christian Faes to break the bread and drink the wine; a tradition passed down in my tradition for millennia. It seems that the time is right for those of my tradition to find our voices and to come out of the closet to our Faerie brothers; and so celebrate our spiritual heritage as openly, joyously, and unselfconsciously as other Faeries celebrate theirs.

My hope, dream, and prayer is that cross-fertilization between all faiths, religions, and spiritual paths will draw Faeries and other gay men together, so we can be a beacon. Together, we can light a path for those gay men destroying themselves through the inauthentic, hetero-imitative habits of the dysfunctional side of gay culture. But we can also light a path for those communities still inclined to shut the doors and shut their minds to the queerness of spirituality.

I have a tattoo on my back of a star, with rays emanating from it. Underneath are the words FIAT LUX–Latin for “Let there be light.” In the Abrahamic tradition, these are the first words uttered by God, spoken as creation is brought into being. But light is also a metaphor for illumination: to be enlightened is to attain wisdom; enlightenment makes transcendence possible. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness cannot overcome it. Let us shine our Faerie light through the prism of our fabulous queer spirits, in whatever congregation of the faithful we find ourselves!

Faerie Labyrinth

Christian Labyrinth

Faerie Gathering Place

Christian Gathering Place

Art by Crow Dog, Saltspring Island

Answering The Call: An Interview With An Elder

On a beautiful Sunny summer day Sequoia agreed to go for a walk with me, Stitch, and have an interview in Stanley Park.

After perusing his garden, an explosion of color and texture, on the triangular shaped deck at his comfortable West End home, Sequoia made us the perfect summer lunch of a hearty, healthy salad. What followed was a ninety minute walk and talk.

Here’s a portion of that conversation.

Sequoia: Definitely the word spiritual on the call stood out because I had been feeling the lack of spirit in the gay world that I had been seeing. I’d been seeing the bars and the baths and Pride parades and such and I wasn’t having a sense of… I hadn’t really met many gay men who really seemed like they were on a spiritual path. So the fact that this call was going out as a Spiritual gathering first… that was like the headline ‘A Spiritual Gathering’. I thought whoa, ok, I think I need to be there! It was so obvious when people turned out that there were these shining beings who arrived. So immediately there was a sense that oh these really are spiritual gay men and it was such an affirmation that I was no longer alone, that I was a gay man and a spiritual man.

Stitch: Did you see this in a handful of men who arrived or the majority?

Sequoia: Majority. There was a real light. So that somehow affirmed something in my psyche, in my soul that these men were embodying the connection between gay and spiritual and that was such a

teaching, such an affirmation.

Stitch: When you left the gathering how did that manifest its self in your life then? Knowing that you were more or less not alone with that.

Sequoia: It seemed like I had been laying the foundation for changes. I had decided… I think around nineteen… actually I knew even before entering Air Force Pilot training that it was a lark. That it was something I needed to do to get out of my system. I kind of knew the whole time that it wasn’t my life’s work. I don’t know how I knew that but I did. So after I got out of the Air Force in 72 and went to Berkeley, it was really with the intention of finding myself.

to come at a time when I was… I guess I was ready to make the leap. My Dad had died the previous December, nine months before, and left me a small amount of money. So I had this little nest egg that would tide me over to make a career change. Somehow the gathering was like the final impetus. It was like suddenly I knew in my bones who I was in a way that I hadn’t before.

Stitch: You were ripe, you were ready. Sequoia: (laughing) Really ready, really ripe.

Stitch: Did you get that sense from a lot of the fellas that they were like just…

Sequoia: Oh yeah

Stitch: … ready to take it in?

Sequoia: Oh yeah it was such a sense of celebration of joy in just finding each other. You know over two hundred of us. It was quite a… and it’s like this...Wow!

Stitch: Do you feel you bring the aspect of Faerie to your work?

Stitch: And Berkeley was a conscious decision?

Sequoia: Yeah very much. It had the reputation of being the free thinking capital of ‘Merica.

Stitch: Right, gotcha.

Sequoia: I wanted to be in that very free atmosphere where I could just indebt myself. So I had been seeking and questioning and asking and I had already some idea that the direction was going in was to be teaching yoga and doing massage and things like that but I wasn’t there yet. The gathering happened

Sequoia: Yeah, a big part of the impetus for my creating the retreats that I began leading… I guess I started those about six years later. But I did a proto-type one in nineteen-eighty-one, a little mini-workshop that James Broughton and Joel came to, among others. It was like eight of us, like a little mini retreat. But the impetus was defiantly to try to find the essence of what I enjoyed from the Faerie gathering without some of the trappings that I didn’t think were necessary or spoke to me. So I wanted to kind of boil it down to some of the essentials of really heartfelt connecting with self and others.

Stitch: Right.

Sequoia: That flavor that the Faerie gatherings have when they’re at their best of men connecting on a really authentic level, oh playfully, heart fully, lovingly. That’s the part that I wanted to

find ways of promoting and replicating. The beings who are drawn to Faerie gatherings are often in the gender spectrum more comfortable on the androgynous to feminine side… and part of what has influenced me was the early experience before the Faerie gathering was being a part of a men’s group in Berkeley at the men’s center where I was the only gay man. And yet there was this wonderful loving, honest, supportive, caring connection that was developed. At various times there were eight to twelve of us in this group that met every week for years, for about three years. So I… my sense was that what I wanted in my life was span sexual orientation, span gender identity. I wanted it to be inclusive of more feminine oriented men. I wanted heterosexual men as well as homosexual men. I didn’t want to limit myself to the Fae to the queer end of the spectrum. That’s kind of been my calling in regards to being a bridge builder.

Stitch: So in essence then you’re taking your Faerie magic and instead of bringing it to the Faeries, you’re bringing it to the community at large.

Sequoia: Yeah, thank you for that. That says it well.

Stitch: Your clientele spans all the masculine genders?

Sequoia: Oh yeah, but I’d say a fairly large percentage of my massage clients are… how much of a percentage? Maybe a quarter of my massage clients are men who are not gay identified. Maybe still in heterosexual marriages and yet they either know they’re gay or they know that they want some kind intimate contact with a man and massage is a safe, well defined arena to have that.

Stitch: It’s an amazing gift that you give to the greater societal community. Where do you fall in the spectrum of elders?

Sequoia: One of the ones that Harry embodied, I would say, was philosopher.

Definitely spoke eloquently of his philosophy and so for. Myself, the term Shaman I’ve been… you may recall I went down to Tucson in April to a Sexual Shamanism workshop. And I went because I had never quite thought of myself as a shaman before and then I realized when I heard those two words together sexual shamanism it was like ‘Oh yeah that’s what I do!’ I work with… the way I work with most of my clients is directly working with the erotic energy to bring about a transformation of consciousness. So it’s not just for pleasure, but I think it can really have that Shamanic transformative altered states of consciousness capability. So I embrace the shaman archetype myself now.

of uncertainty about that. I felt in some ways more certain in the early eighties when I was launching into this new career, oh I have this kind of mission and now it’s less clear. Maybe this is a phase of becoming nobody. Like letting go of being a somebody and just you know letting go of that whole ego structure thing and just delighting in not having that role, with a capital ‘R’.

A little story comes to mind. I met James and Joel in nineteen-eighty, as I talked about, and they became friends of mine and also my roommate Hal’s and used to come over to the house with some regularity and they had come over for dinner. Hall was the chef so he was sort of hosting and I had gone off to the ashram where Muktananda resided, just a few kilometers away to do something and learned that Muktananda had died.

Stitch: Oh.

Stitch: Do you think that eldership or ageing, chronology that there’s a confidence that comes with that? Or are you just as unsure about things now as you were in that van with the rage top so you could have the open desert above your head, the young man heading off to the desert.

Sequoia: Some ways more confident, some ways less confident (laughs). I was actually just journaling about that in the last couple of days. Sort of asking myself as this milestone 65 birthday comes along, who am I becoming and you know what’s my role in life, morphing into so on and so forth. There’s a level

Sequoia: I was bereaved, I was just grief struck and I came back to the house and shared this cataclysmic news with James and Joel and Hal. James’ response was such a profound teaching. In a very light-hearted way he just said ‘Yes dear all my gurus have died.’ What I got from that was at some point when we reach a certain age of course our elders are not going to be around and we are the elders. There is no longer an embodied elder for us to look up to, but we are in that position for younger ones. Basically he was saying to me I’ve had to let go of my gurus now that I’m… he was then in his mid or upper sixties and that’s part of the process. They will all die and at some point we no longer have… just like we no longer have our parents any more we won’t have these others. We are the elders.

Sequoia in his garden, photo taken by Stitch

Prayer for Solace

by Michael V. Smith

you give me a hummingbird, the dark head of a seal rising out of the water, a heron, and four wasps building their life in a log beside me if I can change direction by a twig snagging my clothing, a sign to go no further, how is it I have no will to end what I had better off not started? the hunt outside myself in the disappointing world an aggression of optimism, resilience of faith

fool to think one of them might have the answer

we are here for our pitiable bodies, the lush trails mock our fumbling, zippers and latex

we are lonely for the world around us

to have silence, this silence here on the beach, the silence of grass being torn from itself by the black beak of a goose, silence in the lick of water in birdcall, silence in the leaves silence, when everything to do with us is gone

what are the terms? propriety, desire, individualism spoiled and bent, loneliness

—loneliness

as if god’s hand held everything and let go.

These images are from Body of Text created by the team of David Ellingsen and Michael V. Smith. Published by BookThug from 2008. Michael is currently making his home in Kelowna BC

Images by David Ellingsen and Michael V. Smith, Body of Text, published by BookThug, 2008.

Faerie Fishboy

by David Mielke

I was hatched the first time in 1963 – content to play with myself, naturally complete in the happy undoubting of my okayness - in Campbell River, a fishing town on the edge of Discovery Passage, famous for the Tyee salmon that returned to leave their fertilized eggs in the full circle spot where they were born, as a thank you gift to life before dying.

Campbell River was also famous for fagfishing, a sport based on the genderosophy that those hatched with a pecker must never act like those hatched with a snatch. The biggest commandment in the Campbell River Blue Is For Boys Fishing Bible was: “Thou shalt not be a faerie fishboy, for little faerie fishboys into big ol’ fagfish grow!” So while it was only legal to hook and club Tyees for a short time in late summer, the fagfishers were encouraged to catch and bash faerie fishboys all year round.

This was a problem because I liked to carry a red purse and wear a lavender t-shirt that came down past my tail and put on shows wearing rainbow coloured costumes - until my kindergarten teacher banned me from the girls costume box and gently hugged me while suggesting my parents should put me on steroids. The fagfishers who meant well could be the most dangerous because their homophobic hooks were baited with something that felt caring.

Half of me learned not to trust anything dangling on a line, no matter who was casting it. When I asked Santa for a pink Easy-Bake Oven, he brought a blue one, and also threw in a macho barbecue apron and a manly chef’s hat. I was pissed that even Santa - a guy who pranced around in a white fur-trimmed, red velvet pantsuit with matching pompommed phallic shaped tam - thought my wishes needed to be butched up a bit. To avoid the pain of being hooked into believing I existed the wrong way, I had to ignore the half of me the fagfishers had already caught. The more they

reeled him in the more he couldn’t stand it when I made outfits for the stolen Barbie Doll stashed under my bed in a Tinker Toy canister, or pretended to be Endora from ‘Bewitched’. His “Why do you have to be so femmy?!” frettings were no fun to play with, so I steered clear of sharing my queer inner life with him, which was hard to do when we were swimming in the same body.

The mixed messages the fagfishers put out only made the schism between us worse. “A good boy should be like Jesus!” they said in Sunday school. Be like Jesus? Wasn’t he the Queen of the faerie fishboys?! He was always talking about loving each other and seemed so creative and sensitive and even seduced

banished him down to the darkest part of my psyche. “There’s no place like homo!” I yelled as he fell into the belly of my being. “Good riddance!”

Campbell River was too narrow and cold, so I turned tail and swished my way south to Hollywood, where the warmer welcoming waters were teeming with other self-loving faerie fishboys who’d bumped off their inner Ennis Del Mars and followed their dreams to Hollywood - or so it seemed.

It was great being in a place where gayness swam proudly and joyfully (even if that pride and joy seemed buoyed up more by drugs and alcohol than anything truly worth being proud or joyful about); and where everyone was embraced (as long as they were young and sexy). When the AIDS crisis hit I was moved by the way the gay community took action (while inwardly believing we deserved to die). Holy Brokeback, Batman! I hadn’t killed off my internalized homophobia in Canada after all; all I’d done was smuggle it over the border without declaring it.

I was as conflicted as my Pisces birth sign: two halves of a faerie fishboy swimming against himself in everdefeating circles. It was time to become a faerie fishMAN and do something about it.

twelve men into running off with him, but no one pummelled him in the church parking lot, like they did me. They may have nailed him to a cross, but it wasn’t for being a fagfish!

When puberty hit it sent the half of me caught by the fagfishers over the edge. Actually, the horny half of me shoved him over. How could I keep a joyful boy-loving boner with him whimpering, “Femboys and faggots and queers, oh my!” inside my head as if he were lost in a perverted forest with no yellow brick road to follow and no bogus wizard to help him find his way out? I bashed him harder than any fagfisher ever had and

I dove deep into my shadowy depths, determined to finish off my self-hating half once and for all; but, when I found him, with a torn mouth and dented head, in a nest of broken lines and old fagfisher’s nets, I couldn’t bring myself to hurt him any more than I already had.

I’d never really looked at his wounds before, let alone held space for them. My survival in the past had depended on not doing that, as surely as my survival in the future depended on doing it now. He let me touch his scars, but he flinched when I said it was okay to be gay. He didn’t trust me. He knew how much shame I was carrying because he was the part of me who’d carried it all.

I had to prove I believed it was okay to be gay and it had to be in the place we’d learned it wasn’t. So, swimming side by side in the same direction for the first

time since tasting a fagfisher’s hook, we returned to Campbell River. “Now watch this!” I told him, and leapt high OUT of the water, right in front of the fagfishers, making the biggest gayest splash I could by speaking out - in the paper, on television, at community hall forums, at human rights gatherings, and in every middle and high school in town - about how okay it was to be gay.

I talked about the rainbow roles that faerie fishfolk have played throughout time as artists, creators, scientists, healers, shamans, tricksters, sacred clowns, visionaries, gate keepers, and consciousness scouts. I talked about my friends whose names were stitched into the AIDS Memorial Quilt and how I felt a responsibility to honour and give meaning to their short lives and early deaths by developing and expressing all the colourful faerie fishman potentials they hadn’t lived long enough to discover in themselves.

I spoke the biggest truth I knew: that faerie fishfolk are Gigantic Givers to the Greater Good - not threats to it.

Speaking that truth out loud finally set the half of me caught by the fagfishers free. Free to trust, free to grow, free to make the final push against the river, back to the full-circle hatching spot of happily undoubting his okayness - where I was waiting for him with open fins. And in that birthing spot, without shame, in full view of Nature, we came together so authentically and completely we died into the Mystery and became something new; our old journey scarred experiences dissolving into wisdomenriched nutrients to feed what the two healed halves of a faerie fishman loving each other had spawned: the fertilized eggs of a big, shiny, Wholly Self-Realized, powerfully gay Tyee.

I can’t wait to hatch for the second time and live what the legacy of that will be!

If you’d like to know more, David can easily be persuaded to open up with a hug. Currently he lives in Campbell River, BC.

Myth of Community

by Morgain Lessloss

Joseph Campbell described a myth as something that “never was and always is.” Increasingly I believe this applies to community. It’s a word, a concept, a myth that is often used in Radical Faerie circles. Many of us are devoted to forming, developing and maintaining community. Many of us have intuitive understandings of it, but have trouble articulating its meaning (let alone agreeing on a meaning), and we often adamantly disagree on its application. There is also great debate as to whether or not Faerie community even exists. Some time ago, a discussion started on the Vancouver Faerie listserv about our individual responsibility to our community. I watched the conversation progress and realized different faeries were using different definitions and assumptions about community and what it means. This essay is my attempt at being clear about what I understand community to be. It’s also an attempt to start a different conversation – one where we can learn about one another’s understandings of community without the expectation that we will agree or disagree – one where we’ll strive to understand each other’s understanding of the concept.

intimates. I forget where or how I first learned of this, but as I understand it, community is a series of concentric circles. In the smallest are the few people and Faeries that have seen me when all my masks have come off and my coping mechanisms have failed. They are the ones I turn to at the moments of highest ecstasy and clarity or when I’m falling or have fallen apart. The circles expand from here to people I know and trust as confidents, to people I know and share things in common with, to people I know but don’t know well, to people I don’t know but am connected with and on and on to all my relations on earth and beyond. To each of these circles at different times and different places, I have ascribed the word community. Where I focus my energy and attention within these circles changes with time and life circumstances. Sometimes I’m more engaged and involved, sometimes less. The earth has rhythms and so too do communities.

What do I mean when I say

community? Sometimes I mean the abstract community: as in this program or initiative will help the “community”; sometimes I mean communities of interest/action; sometimes communities of geography, communities of gender, and sometimes I’m referring to a smaller group within a larger community. Even in my own usage of the word there are multiple meanings and levels. When I meet others and discuss community, and my multiple meanings meet their multiple meanings, the potential for confusion or misunderstanding grows exponentially.

My view of community is shaped strongly by the idea of the circle of

Time and experience changes who is in each of my circles of intimates. Often the change happens without me being consciously aware of it. My time gets busy and instead of talking to a friend weekly, it slowly changes to once a month, to once a year and then a person who was in my most intimate circle has slid further away. Sometimes, I’m painfully aware of changes in my circle of intimates such as when a lover and I fight and he needs to end or limit his contact with me. Some of the changes in my circles of intimates are initiated by me and some are beyond my control. Sometimes I’d like to initiate a change but the person I want to move closer to or further from doesn’t want that change to occur. Other times I’m invited to be in another person’s circle of intimates and I hold this person further away because of where I am at emotionally. Community and levels of intimacy are fluid and dynamic.

Community does not mean I interact with all of these people in the same manner. It doesn’t even mean that I like or trust everyone in all of these circles. But it does mean I’m in some form of

relationship and contact with them. We affect one another, but it doesn’t equate friendship.

The potential danger in this approach is that I may only ever allow people like me into my closest circles of intimates, excluding people from different cultures, races, religions, spiritual traditions, political ideologies, etc. I have to remain constantly vigilant to ensure that I don’t use this concept of circle of intimates, as an excuse to avoid learning from those that are different from me or to limit the diversity of people in my life. For too long community has been used as an excuse for discrimination and exclusion. This is a practice I do not and can not support. So, community is a place where diversity is honoured and valued.

In the myth I’m weaving about community, it’s a place where arguments and disagreements can occur. I often describe the Radical Faeries as being bigger than life. Our joy, our love, our commitment, our creativity is all bigger than life, but so too are our shit and our fans. So, when the shit hits the fan, the mess left behind is bigger than life. In my myth of community, people stick it out to help clean up that shit. If I had a role in creating the mess, I also hope others in the community will help me see my role in the situation, and how I could have responded differently so that next time we may find more constructive ways to address our issues.

People in my communities, especially in my most intimate circles can get under my skin and get me riled up more than those who I don’t feel a community connection to. I think part of the reason for this is because I identify closely with them and when we disagree it feels like my identity is being challenged. They also know me very well and can play off of my strengths and weaknesses. Like the good tricksters that many of them are, they can use my pride and fallacies to

teach me the things I already know.

Community can also be a place to be pruned or cut back. Sometimes this is helpful and, to continue the gardening metaphor, encourages further growth. Sometimes, it causes damage and harms those who have been cut back. For better or for worse, both are a part of my experience of community, with the hope that more often the effect is the former. Members in most communities have some identifiable thing in common. In Radical Faerie circles, however, I find it difficult to identify what we have in common. I’ve heard others describe

communities are viewed varies greatly depending on who is doing the viewing. What I consider community another may despise and see as unhealthy relationships. Communities of drug users may be seen as enabling one another in destructive behaviour or as a group watching out for one another in difficult times. What another holds dear and calls community I may see nothing but hate or fear fuelled relationships trying to exclude others from the neighbourhood. Those working in non-profit social service agencies of the community can be seen as working for social justice or as being poverty pimps. It’s not up to me to judge what works for others, but to discern what I need in and from my community, in addition to what I can offer to it.

Faeries as being radically committed to both consensus and anarchy. For me this highlights the tension in Faeriedom between valuing individual expression and living together with each other and the earth, which often requires community agreements. Maybe the difference is that Radical Faeries understand how to stand in the beauty of paradoxes allowing both conditions to exist simultaneously rather than trying to turn them into polar opposites.

Community is a self-defined condition. Consider the Downtown Eastside in Vancouver, a neighbourhood that is often considered a very socio-economically depressed neighbourhood. Here there are communities of people helping others, of people using drugs, of people advocating for change, of people who live in the area. How each of these

My community “that never was and always is,” is a diverse group of people of varying degrees of intimacy who help one another to grow, and who stick it out through the tough times. It is a place (physical or emotional) where we work towards what we want and help each other get what we need. It’s a place were standing in paradox powers our creativity. Now comes the tough parts: putting this out to my communities for feedback, input and refinement; and living into this myth, or the myth as it’s shaped by others in my community, as closely and imperfectly as I can.

As I wrote at the beginning of this essay, I hope to start a conversation of what each of us understands community to be. I would love to hear other faeries’ and other peoples’ myths of community. What is it that you strive to create or be a part of? What works and doesn’t work for you in the concept of community?

What are your expectations of others in your community and how do you negotiate these expectations? What is your myth of community?

Morgain makes his home in the vibrant community of Vancouver’s West End.

Morgain as Greenman, photo by Raspberry Showboat

Wheelieguy and Me

by Stitch

Endless photos of headless torsos, butts and other revealing body parts scrolled by as I lolled about in a chat-room. There had been very little activity online, when I got a signal that an IM was being started. I accepted the request from ‘Wheelieguy’. His photo was one of the occasional face pics I had scrolled past, but now I was studying each detail as we typed customary opening greetings. The photographer had caught his handsome face in the middle of an open mouthed laugh.

We chatted about our mornings and the weather, but then the conversation took a turn. Wheelieguy wanted to know that if we met could I lift him into and out of bed. He wanted to know if I would be able to undress him and then get him dressed again. He said his hands didn’t work the same way as mine did. He was very eager to meet up. I evaded his repeated hints as I was uneasy with his physical limitations.

Summer’s journey through the calendar year continued with warm sunny West Coast days and my virtual chats with Wheelieguy carried on. He was a young man with Cerebral Palsy living his days confined to a wheelchair. He lived alone and a helper came by to take care of his daily needs. I’d learned that he’d been successful in meeting men online, but they were all one shot deals. Each time we chatted Wheelieguy expressed his interest in meeting. My mind swarmed with thoughts. I was concerned that by having sex with this man it could be conceived as me taking advantage of his disability.

I was out of computer range for the

duration of an August trip, so there were no conversations with Wheelieguy. As I went about my days, my thoughts continuously drifted to him. I played over our typed conversations focusing on his tenacity and eagerness. There was a pleasant tone to his wording which I realized had put me at ease about his unique physicality. My curiosity grew. When I returned home we resumed our online chats. He was more persistent than ever and I agreed to meet to satisfy our curiosity. He typed ‘I cant promise I wont jump your bones… lol’.

I drove to Wheeliguy’s home. My mind raced a mile a minute playing over what I could potentially be getting involved with. My narrow imagination couldn’t conceive of having sex with a quadriplegic. What would we do? How would we do it?

I arrived at his apartment building and parked my car. Sitting outside in a large electric wheelchair with the biggest smile on his face was my potential hook-up. His hands were little fists. His wrists were bent and hugged tightly to his torso. As I drew closer his huge expressive

brown eyes penetrated me; softening me. We greeted each other and then he bent his body sideways hitting a button on the chair with his forearm. There was an audible click and his apartment door automatically opened. He pushed his head into the headrest of the chair causing it to spin around and led the way into his home.

Wheelieguy rolled into the center of his living-room and spun around to face me. He was still smiling. I was sure he could read the apprehension in my eyes. There was awkward silence as I took in the modest, clean apartment. Framed photos adorned the wall above his dining-table. We’d typed a lot to each other over the past weeks, but now there was little to talk about.

He gave a laugh, those brown eyes alive with mischief and asked if I wanted to lie down on his bed with him. I agreed. Again he hit the headrest with the back of his skull and the chair did an about face. He wheeled into the depths of his spacious apartment. I walked past the open door to his bathroom. A life sized cutout of Seven-of-nine from the Star Trek franchise stood guard next to the open doorway of his bedroom.

Wheelieguy had parked his ride next to a large single bed. He directed me as to how to disengage him from the chair. I folded foot plates out of the way so his feet could touch the carpeted floor. I undid the seatbelt that held him securely in place. Then I bent over and made my first body contact. I put my arms around his rigid upper chest and embraced him tightly. I lifted him to standing; surprisingly he was heavier than I’d anticipated. He directed me to pivot him around and we were in a kind of herky-jerky waltz, his socked feet dragging on the floor. I got him turned around and he told me to put him on the bed. I placed (dropped) him on the comforter. My forehead beaded with

Stitch and Wheelieguy

sweat. This was tough work.

He asked me to lie down beside him. I took up a place on his right.

‘I have a joke,’ he said.

‘Oh yeah,’ or something like that.

‘Why am I so good at golf?’ he asked.

I shrugged.

‘Because of my handicap,’ he broke into a big laugh that caused his body to shake and jerk, his big eyes alive with excitement and anticipation. Then he said, ‘You can take off my shirt…’

This amazing man unabashedly guided me through each step of our first encounter. I walked away dazed and somehow transformed. As I pulled my car out of its parking spot, I knew I was going to see him again.

I arrived at his apartment building and parked my car. Sitting outside in a large electric wheelchair with the biggest smile on his face was my potential hookup. His hands were little fists. His wrists were bent and hugged tightly to his torso. As I drew closer his huge expressive brown eyes penetrated me; softening me. We greeted each other and then he bent his body sideways hitting a button on the chair with his forearm. There was an audible click and his apartment door automatically opened. He pushed his head into the headrest of the chair causing it to spin around and led the way into his home.

Wheelieguy rolled into the center of his living-room and spun around to face me. He was still smiling. I was sure he could read the apprehension in my eyes. There was awkward silence as I took in the

modest, clean apartment. Framed photos adorned the wall above his dining-table. We’d typed a lot to each other over the past weeks, but now there was little to talk about.

cutout of Seven-of-nine from the Star Trek franchise stood guard next to the open doorway of his bedroom.

Wheelieguy had parked his ride next to a large single bed. He directed me as to how to disengage him from the chair. I folded foot plates out of the way so his feet could touch the carpeted floor. I undid the seatbelt that held him securely in place. Then I bent over and made my first body contact. I put my arms around his rigid upper chest and embraced him tightly. I lifted him to standing; surprisingly he was heavier than I’d anticipated. He directed me to pivot him around and we were in a kind of herkyjerky waltz, his socked feet dragging on the floor. I got him turned around and he told me to put him on the bed. I placed (dropped) him on the comforter. My forehead beaded with sweat. This was tough work.

He asked me to lie down beside him. I took up a place on his right.

‘I have a joke,’ he said.

‘Oh yeah,’ or something like that.

‘Why am I so good at golf?’ he asked.

I shrugged.

‘Because of my handicap,’ he broke into a big laugh that caused his body to shake and jerk, his big eyes alive with excitement and anticipation. Then he said, ‘You can take off my shirt…’

He gave a laugh, those brown eyes alive with mischief and asked if I wanted to lie down on his bed with him. I agreed. Again he hit the headrest with the back of his skull and the chair did an about face. He wheeled into the depths of his spacious apartment. I walked past the open door to his bathroom. A life sized

This amazing man unabashedly guided me through each step of our first encounter. I walked away dazed and somehow transformed. As I pulled my car out of its parking spot, I knew I was going to see him again.

Stitch lives with an amazing family in South Vancouver.

...he broke into a big laugh that caused his body to shake and jerk, his big eyes alive with excitement and anticipation.”

Stitch, photo by Raspberry Showboat

1REMEMBRANCES2

Orvis Aldrich

December 24, 1927 – June 16, 2007

One of the unsung radical rural faeries as told by Tulip.

When I first moved to the Sunshine Coast I had the pleasure of meeting a truly rural faerie couple who lived just up the hill from Joni Mitchell in Middlepoint, a place so remote and yet so quaint and more reminiscent of Tolkien than anything else, that I immediately changed the name of their location to Middle Earth and there I visited them often as I planted my own roots on the coast. To me they were the quintessential rural faeries as I had seen them depicted and regaled in older copies of RFD when it still advertised itself as “A country journal for gay men everywhere”. Tucked away, off the highway, amidst the rocks and the evergreens of the coastal forest,

they had created a rural retreat with a partially finished house heated by the most delightful little stove in the middle of the living room, fabulous verdant garden plots wherever soil could be carted in and cultivated, untold hens, geese, ducks and even turkeys everywhere, as well as many feral cats, and three scary big dogs guarding their world, both to keep the bears at bay and announcing and screening visitors more quickly than Homeland security .

Both Orvis and Michael were born in rural settings, Orvis, the elder of the two, in the Eastern Townships of Quebec, close to the US border, where as the only son he had been raised in all the arts and labours of a farmer’s life. At the same time, he was comfortable as well in the kitchen ruled by his mother and his sisters, learning to cook and bake and master all the domestic arts. He did well in school and even taught for a while in a one-room schoolhouse but was not able to afford a college

experience to make that a vocation. Instead he farmed on, becoming the sole male on the farmstead after his father died.

The details of Orvis’ life are now hazy to Michael, but the family eventually sold the farm and Orvis worked his way across the country, settling in Saskatchewan for some time where he worked as a farmhand, before moving to Edmonton, Alberta, where, living in rooming houses, he completed a University degree in Geography . By the time he moved to Vancouver to pursue his studies at the University of British Columbia, still a strong handsome man with a full dark beard, he had come out as a gay man and happily immersed himself in the gay community in the West End.

In the summer of 1979, Orvis was one of a small number of Canadian gay men who answered the call by Harry Hay and his cohorts to attend a Radical Faerie gathering in Arizona. How he heard about it, he could not remember, but he knew he had to be there. He had a well-worn file folder with his mementoes of that gathering and he treasured the flyer and the article by Mark Thompson in The Advocate of the ground-breaking event that established the Radical Faerie movement. His partner, Michael, remembers only that it had been a great weekend for Orvis and that Orvis had gleefully described the nudity, the mud baths and the rituals, sort of like Burning Man where they did far-out things, things that are no longer considered weird or far-out at faerie gatherings now. Orvis was matter of fact about the experience and had little to say about that time, but as I watched him think about it, he smiled and got that glint in his eyes that spoke volumes about how it had impacted and shaped him. When I encouraged him to say more, he demurred. He didn’t like any fuss made from the fact that he had been a participant at that seminal event.

After that gathering in the Arizona desert, Orvis met Michael, who had been born in the wilderness and raised in the North of Alberta and the Yukon, and then also came to the gay ghetto of Vancouver. Together, as lovers and friends, they opened an art framing shop in Burnaby where Michael taught lessons in drawing and painting. Orvis supplemented their income with work in the Post Office. The 80’s were a time of struggle but contentment, but neither Michael nor Orvis were suburban or urban types, and in 1989 at the heart of the AIDS epidemic, with Michael already infected, they moved to the Sunshine Coast and became part of the coastal community and a group of queer exiles from the city. Throughout the 90’s as they created their rural world, they were both involved and active participants in the newly-created Sunshine Coast Gay and Lesbian Association, Michael contributing to a very active newsletter preceding the Yahoo Group site that replaced it.

When I met them in 2002, they were fully and happily living the rural faerie life. While Michael continued to keep a foot on the mainland, spending part of the time there teaching art and socializing, Orvis stayed in Middlepoint to be the green man, to garden – talking to the plants and desirous of teaching people all about their workings – and to cook and

preserve, bringing both the farming and domestic artistry from his childhood to even greater levels. Their kitchen was a grand meeting place and their dinners always hearty and abundant. Orvis kept a full pantry and a tidy and clean kitchen. Only the computer and the large screen television indicated a contemporary world. As he aged, Orvis was always gracefully cheery, ever curious about everything, even-keeled, non-judgemental and yet capable of righteous rage over discrimination and injustice. He was a pacifist, an environmentalist, a rabid reader of history and biographies, especially of ordinary working people and of boats and fishermen. He was also very musical and yet untrained. Michael regrets that he didn’t have an expression for his music for he played the piano well and so loved classical music, John Denver and American Civil War songs.

As I built my own little retreat on the Sunshine Coast I saw them less frequently, and when Orvis was diagnosed with cancer, their home became like a lair; like wounded animals, they wrapped themselves in silence and sought a deep and primal privacy. Throughout his illness and the regular visits to the Cancer Clinic in Vancouver, where he died in 2007, Orvis was intently curious about what was happening to him. He didn’t want visitors, though, and no fuss, and wasn’t a churchgoer, so he left us quietly, true to form not to cause any trouble ever, which as, Michael, says sadly, is more than most of us do.

His favourite dog, Ruby, 17 years old, died a year later. Michael still misses him terribly and seems lost without him. People still talk about Orvis’ special butter tarts with which he graced the many potlucks for queers on the coast. He is gone but remains warmly in our memories as one of those unsung heroes of the Radical Faerie movement, present at its inception now 30 years ago, a Whitmanesque Canadian rural gay faerie to the end.

Tulip, photo by Raspberry Showboat

Prison Pages

By Myrlin

Imagine receiving and responding to, on average, 100 letters a week from guys who have been locked up behind the walls for both valid and invalid reasons. Imagine the amount of pain and need being expressed and imagine the hopes of friendship and correspondence being lifted up by those who are writing. I get to hear of these hopes and dreams as I open and read each letter. Some of those who write have lost family and friends simply by being gay and others have gone through these losses because of death. For the latter there is the added pain of having no way to bring closure to the loss since they are not permitted to attend any of the family functions that normally help with grief issues. So the value of our program including Prison Pages and Brothers Behind Bars Pen Pal list is without question.

Unfortunately if this program is going to continue financial help and support is going to be required. RFD Magazine is experiencing its own financial trials and can no longer support the work of Brothers Behind Bars and help with covering its mailing and production costs. We need the assistance of our readers in what ever way it can be given. We have asked for donations of $3.00 to $10.00 to cover an issue of the List and do receive it from the 10 or 12 non-inmate requests for the list. But we are not able to ask and expect the same from those inmates who are allowed to write other inmates. Some institutions pay a pittance for work done and others pay nothing but rather provide time credits against sentences as compensation for work. In those cases the only sources of funds which can go for medical care, meals, lodging and the like must come from family and friends. So we operate on a total shoe string. You all know the cost of 20 stamps or of 100 per week which is our average. We also need help getting the art work and poetry on line so others can see and enjoy it. So a web-designer’s assistance would be most welcome. I would be most grateful for a doubling of requests for the list from those who are outside the walls. It amazes me that of all the readers of RFD Magazine fewer than 20 request the list. Your help is needed. Send any requests to BBB, PO Box 68, Liberty, TN 37095. If you have ideas please e-mail Myrlin at bbbmyrlin@ yahoo.com.

So having said all of that let me now introduce you to a few of our inmate brothers with their stories, poetry and art.

The first entry I will include comes from an inmate in Colorado who had asked to have this included to bring to light the issue of Prison Rape and of his desire to do something about it. I have chosen to remove specific names in his article but include his name and address in case any wish to write to him. It is a very serious issue.

“Injustice”

Rape, a word that’ll make most folks cringe. In DOC it’s a dirty secret that officials try to hide. If you’re coerced, extorted, threatened or intimidated into doing anything sexual you’ve experienced rape. Here is my story:

Prison can be a hard place for anyone, but it should not be a living nightmare. For two years I was sexually assaulted a number of ways by inmates. When I’d say no or cry I was hit in

the face. If I resisted I was hit and/or kicked until I gave in. I’ve had a knife put to my neck and I’ve had feces and urine thrown in my face. I never talked about what was going on because I feared for my life.

I’m not a sexist in any way, but if a woman says rape, something is done about it. But a gay man in prison says rape and nobody cares.

I wrote dozens of letters to DOC officials about what I went through. People like Director___________. Warden and Investigator ignored my pleas. According to the Prison Rape Elimination Act, every claim of sexual assault will be investigated and prosecuted. And any inmate making a claim will be given counseling and treatment. Each state is given hundreds of thousands of dollars by the Feds just to pay for investigation, prosecution, counseling and treatment of prison rape. For two years nobody contacted me about me being sexually assaulted.

Finally, in the spring of ’08, Investigators and contacted me about being sexually assaulted. They asked some minor questions and did not want to hear any details. I was then told that unless I saved any semen to prove my “story” nothing would be done. I was not aware it required pulling a Bill and Monica to get justice. Where is all of the money really going that’s suppose to be used for prison rape issues?

DOC can’t control the sexual assaults. It can control if they violate PREA or not. Because DOC violated PREA I got screwed. Literally! Due to what I’ve been through I feel ashamed and humiliated. My confidence, self esteem and trust has been shot.

To deal with my pain, I’ve caused self bodily harm and attempted suicide several times. If DOC obeyed PREA I would’ve received the needed counseling and a honest investigation would’ve been done.

No compensation can be made to erase what I’ve been through. DOC will not change until someone makes a stand. I’m making a stand so others won’t have to suffer. If it was you being raped would you want justice?

The only justice I want is to force DOC to obey PREA and that can only happen through a Civil Rights Complaint. I have no clue how to do that and no family willing to help. I urge you to make a stand with me. Write your government officials and hold DOC accountable. This country was built on strangers helping each other.

Jonathan W. Woodstock DOC # 11619

PO Box 6000

Sterling CO 80751

August 2009

Secondly I want to bring you a very interesting response to our request that inmates placing ads state whether they are gay, bi or transsexual. I am deeply grateful for the response I received from Alec Jay Metaska Johnson in New Mexico. I have chosen to quote him without edit to capture the flavor of the response. I commend it to you.

I do not understand about this: you state that I must state that I am one of this, gay, bi or trans. I am from the old Traditional

Belief of the Reservation. We do not know about this. I like men that like being a woman, yes, but I also like women. Tradition we have what we call Two Spirits, a woman in man body. We have them in tradition ways like a wife use for helping with sex for man, yes. But also help women with sex needs and with work and the Alpha Male, this is me with sex at the home when needed or wanted and the Alpha Male take the Two Spirit hunting, fishing and on road trips for sexual use and help cutting up the animals on the hunt and keep camp clean and other things.

At the home he use for helping out around the house and has to be open minded with fantasy’s and experience, adventure out on exploration now and old ideas with his man and with his wives he has.

So I don’t see how I can be gay, so what would you call me is a Alpha Male?

The Two Spirit is a wife to me and use by other Real women is wife sexual and is a Number Two Husband at times the women use him or her is sexual is a woman at times and is a man sexual and the Real women also have sex with each other, so at times we all be doing real freaky, kinky foursome and all sleep in the same bed.

So you tell me what I fall under? I am the Alpha male in all my relationships.

Alec Jay Mataska Johnson #57259 Unit H2B-213, 185 Dr. Michael Jenkins Road, Clayton, NM 88415.

Next I present to you two poems and a drawing by Billy John

are doomed to damnation for all eternity. You are terrified, even repulsed, at the very thought of even looking at me. Yet – you are filled with an utterly morbid curiosity. So – you continue to gaze at me, knowing you’ll be damned for all eternity. As I embrace you, I feel our pain, and yes, even our revulsion at my embrace. As I pierce your throat with my needle-like fangs, I am flooded with emotions and memories. YetI can sense no hate or rage during this embrace. A victim of cruelty, you flee, to seek sanctuary. Yet – everywhere you turn and all the places you once sought for shelter, you are, time and again, denied the safety you seek. For you are now a creature of the night, and therefore as such, you are now to be shunned and damned for all eternity!!!

By: Billy John Radan AKA

Wolf Blue Eagle

Billy John Radan 120535 F4-25 Colorado State Prison, PO Box 777, Canon City CO 81215

And a poem by Kem Mateo

Radan

“Memories of You”

by: Billy John Radan

As I sit in this cold and lonely prison cell, day-dreaming & staring off into space, I recall the very first time I had the joyful privilege of seeing your face…

Looking at your photo, it’s as if my sad & lonely heart has been pierced by an arrow, cast from Cupid’s crafty little bow…. So lovely do you appear, it seems as if you are a divine angel, sent to me by God’s heavenly grace….

So-with these few words, My true love and affection now you know.

“Damned for All Eternity”

by: Billy John Radan

Through tears of fear you see me, and as you gaze upon my True Essence you know, down deep within your soul, that you

I Want to Smash Something…

Billy John Radan

When I’m reminded of how my enemy

Ruined my life future

With her pernicious lies

When I recall the injustices

The mockery of the judiciary

Deliberate failures of counsel

When I look back on the abuses

Jailers with their conviction of guile

And sadistic traits

When I wait for mail

But nothing arrives for me

Out of sight, out of mind

When I can’t let this out

It’s either an apathetic inmate

Or a quick psychiatrist

When I look around my prison cell

And find that I’ve got nothing In my life left to Smash!

Ariel

Kem Mateo

Martin Correctional Institution

1150 SW Allapattah Road

Indiantown, FL 34956

Next some artwork by Craig Massey, Nicolas Gonzales and Mark Reyes. Write for the Winter List and meet some of the guys.

95696-2000

Drawing by Nicolas Gonzales #13289685 OSP, 2605 State Street, Salem OR 97310-1346

Craig Massey #H57862, PO Box 2000, Vacaville, CA

Art by Mark Reyes #44521, PO Box 1059, Santa Fe, NM 87504-1059

Robert Ingrum (CO) Mirodello Ashford (LA) Allan Schiff (TX) James Rogers (AZ)

Issue 55 ($10)

Issue 56 ($10)

Issue 57 ($10)

Issue 58 ($10)

Issue 59 ($10)

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To order: please make a copy of this page, circle the issues you would like, fill out the form below, and mail it with check* to: RFD, P.O. Box 302, Hadley MA 01035-0302, or email the same information to: submissions@rfdmag.org.

Advertise in RFD

Help support the oldest gay reader-written magazine in the country. See last page for rates and contact information. Thanks!

New from AuthorHouse to order: www.pinkzinniapoems.com

www.pinkzinnia.wordpress.com

GAY SUNSHINE PRESS & Leyland Publications in

San Francisco

Seeking gay man (or partners) to work from home on U.S./Canada distribution of queer books which it has published. The oldest gay book press in the country (since 1975), Gay Sunshine/Leyland has published such authors as Allen Ginsberg, Jean Genet... Publisher seeks someone living in the extended Bay Area (from Mendocino, to Big Sur, and eastward accordingly). Need stable, dependable individual(s), preferably of mature age; countryside dwellers with space for storage, and with deep interest in books. Payment involved. This is independent contractor activity; initially minimal but hopefully growing.

Contact, with details, references:

Winston Leyland: jared101@fastmail.fm

http://www.gaysunshinepress.com

Zuni Mountain Sanctuary

the skinny.....

SUBMISSIONS

We accept submissions via U.S. Mail, or email at submissions@ rfdmag.org. When sending electronic files by either method, save the text files as an MS Word Doc, Rich Text (RTF), or Simple Text. Images should be high resolution (minimum one mega-byte (1 MB) in TIFF or JPG. Your work may also be used on our website.

WRITING

We welcome your submission. Suggested length is 500 to 2,500 words. We will carefully edit. If you intentionally mean to vary a spelling, let us know. We will contact you if your submission is selected. Contributors receive one copy of the issue in which their work appears and a second copy upon request. Your may also be used on our website.

ART

We always need fresh drawings and photos. Drawings should be quality black and white. Photos can be color or black and white. Original digital camera files work well. Original artwork should be scanned at 300 dpi or higher. Line art should be scanned at 1200 dpi. We may crop your photo to fit our format.

Advertising Rates

DUE DATES

November 1st for Winter, February 1st for Spring, May 1st for Summer; August 1st for Autumn.

ADVERTISING

For rates, contact us by phone or email or get it from our website.

BACK ISSUES

Recent issues are $7 postage paid. Many earlier issues are available. Call us or email us at business@rfdmag.org for availability.

COPYRIGHT

RFD is copyrighted. Credited material remains the property of the contributor. Non-credited material may be republished with attribution.

MAILING

RFD is published quarterly and mailed around the Solstice or Equinox of the quarter. Second class mail can take a while. Let us know if you have not received your copy after a month. Second class mail is NOT forwarded. Let us know if you move.

Our basic advertising rate is $4.00 per square inch per issue. For repeat issues we offer discounts of 5% for two issues, 10% for three issues, and 15% for a full year (four issues).

If you do not have a prepared ad, the RFD staff can prepare one for you from your photographs and text. We charge $75/hr for layout.

Prepared ads should be provided in PDF format or high resolution JPG or TIF (300dpi or 500KB minimum file size). We will scan ad artwork for a fee of $20. RFD is not responsible for poor reproduction due to low resolution artwork.

Following are some examples to help you size your ad.

We accept advertising for products or services that we feel may be of positive value to our readers. Repeating ads will be re-run as given unless new copy is provided by closing date. New ads coming in late will be run next issue unless otherwise stated. Full payment for ads is required by closing date for ad to appear in the new issue.

GATHERINGS, GATHERINGS EVERYWHERE...

We’ve all come to expect another gathering season ahead with gatherings from Asia to Zuni Mountain. Yet as we look to a new season of gatherings and coming together, RFD would like to take some of your time to harken back to earlier days.

The summer issue will be a mix of upcoming gathering news, reports from various gathering communities and sanctuaries (So please send in news about your community!). At the least send us word of your upcoming events.

We are also looking for submissions regarding the southern roots of our faerie gathering culture by asking you to send in stories, photos and artwork relating to community building and early gatherings in the South.

We’re especially interested in hearing from folks with recollections on LASIS (Louisiana Sissies in Struggle), Running Water (an early

home for RFD!) and Running Water’s offspring, the long running Gay Spirit Visions.

But also feel free to submit work which reflects the gathering culture and community as a whole.

Please send in your articles, photos and artwork to submissions@rfdmag.org with “Summer 2009” in the subject line.

Unless it is not possible for you to send items for submissions any other way we prefer you send them electronically. Articles should be text only, single spaced and no paragraph indents.

Photos and artwork should be scanned in a TIFF file (preferred but very high quality JPEG okay) in a file which is at least 1 megabyte in size with a minimum of 300 dpi. If in doubt, scan images at highest quality.

RFD Vol 36 No 2 #140 • $7.75